We enjoyed this!!

You see the little guys on the right??  They are there when you need them!

I don't post many movies but want to share this one!  It  was a fun movie - lots of dry humor and lots of great animation!  Definitely some laugh-out-loud moments!  (If you want some comparison - Greg would like this!)

It's funny - but there's still romance.

There's even a special guest appearance!

Here's the trailer! - Trailer #2 is a little bit of a spoiler.

Another old report card

A few weeks ago I posted a few school report cards of a couple ancestors. I discovered this one today and decided to post it.  It is my own second grade report card from 1948 - thanks mom! 

The top part is the front and back (it folds).  Notice that the handwritten part says that I had a "grade equivalent of 4.2"  - at the end of my second grade year.  I was pretty smart way back then!  Also - we were graded on nine traits of "Citizenship" - and, of course, I got the top mark in all of those.

In the other section the grading is interesting.  It shows how many kids in the class, how many got A's, how many got B's, etc. Then your own grade was circled in red.  That really gives some good information! (And you'll see all A's circled - but from the looks of things that really meant that I was not in the bottom quarter or so.)  The "Explanation of Marks" isn't exactly accurate - "C" was not "Average", in actuality, "C" (in most cases) was the lowest 5-10%!

The other interesting thing to me are the subjects - Arithmetic, Drawing, and then "Language & Grammar", "Reading", "Spelling & Phonics", and "Writing".  Also "Music" for which we were not graded.

This is where I went to school in grades 3-6.  The 2nd grade building was behind this one and in the 7th grade I moved to the building visible to the right.  In the 8th grade we moved to a new campus.

Zippin' in the heat!

I don't think I've seen anyone enjoy the ride down more then this little girl. She'd ridden it before and she made three trips down this time!

 

 

It was actually pretty nice yesterday morning.  In the shade with a breeze - so everyone had fun.  Daniel brought a family over last fall and when they had more family in town for a wedding and visit they wanted to bring them over to ride the zip line.  So now the guest book has entries from Florida and Washington. 

Alex at "Blues Monday" at ZAZUZ Pizza

Come on in!

Our new Monday dinner.  A good pizza at ZAZUZ's in Winnsboro and music.  Our A&E buds Gene and Suzanne make this a regular stop too!  Alex pretty well led this session!

Have you ever seen a "White-lined Sphinx Hummingbird Moth"?

They act like a hummingbird but they are a moth.  It does have a long proboscis and can feed deep into a flower (Mirabillis here).  They zip around like a silent hummingbird.  Never knew there was such a thing and when I ran to get the camera I thought I was going to be taking a picture of a strange, lost, little hummer!

Finished except for the shade cloth - and a few replacement boards

At this point, the pergola is a $300 project and I'm happy with what we have for that.  It is a bit like another room. We're at the stage where the little ideas for further improvement start popping up - a rug? - no two matching rugs, replace the existing one? - change out the furniture? - some of it has lumber from the way it was - replace some of that!! etc., etc.  I've got shade cloth on order now (part of the $300) but I found a big piece (but not big enough) in the garden shed, leftover from the greenhouse, and tacked it up to see what the change would be - nice! So, a little more wood tomorrow for replacements. 

Will finish the pergola tomorrow

But today it's just too hot to work out there in the afternoon!!  I have to rest and rehydrate every half hour or so - but that gives me more time to think about what I'm going to do next and the best way to do it.  It's turning out OK!  Here are some progress shots.  We've noticed already that it makes the deck gazebo more comfortable, particularly in the mornings and early afternoons.

Happy Father's Day!

It's nice when you go into a store and ask how much is on your gift card and what's the price of the item in your hand - and the answer to both questions is the same!  That was the case for the mister system putting out the spray in the pictures above. And it really improves the environment - even in the deck gazebo.

A few weeks ago we were eating under the covered walkway at Brewbaker's Restaurant in Winnsboro and enjoying the atmosphere.  A wish changed into a plan within a few days when we decided to build a small pergola for ourselves.  We've wanted a better way to use the deck space beside the covered area where we have the table and we want a "living room" sorta space.  So I was making plans when the Fathers Day gift cards came in.  I've given myself a little challenge to use any gift cards I get for improvements that the family can also enjoy when they are here and this fits that plan.

The pictures are at an early stage of construction which will take a few more days to complete, mainly because of the heat (although the mister will help there too).  Then we'll move the lounge and love seat into the area, add a ceiling fan, and train the trumpet vine to cover it and make it shady and cooler.  We're also going to reduce the height of the railing on that part of the deck so we can see out without railing in the way (like the lower deck). Looks like a good plan!  

Thanks for those Father's Day gift cards!!

2011 East Texas Pond Tour

Glynda and I spent Saturday morning touring garden ponds in the Tyler/Lindale area.  It was one of those self-guided tours and we just drove from site to site selecting the ones we wanted to see.  There were some wonderful back yards and it was an enjoyable time.  We got to visit with a number of the owners and hear about their experiences with ponds and saw more than one pond where we'd like to go back and spend some time just enjoying it.  Got this Monet-like picture of Glynda at one of them.

More from the bunny -

Beverly said I should try this. Thanks goodness for the tape that's holding me on!

This game ended with an 11th inning walk-off homer by Moreland!  
GO RANGERS!

No new emails in the last fifteen minutes:(

A little reading before turning off the lights for the night.

Some morning bird watching. We call the one on the feeder "BJ"!

Whee! - Whee!, Whee! Whee!
(If you haven't seen the Geico commercial - just go on to the next one.)

Death - taxes - and mowing!

Time for a rest in the shade.

Vicki saw the first bunny post this weekend and then I got an email from Beverly who'd just seen it too.  Both got some laughs out of it and Beverly asked for more.  So it's her fault.  A couple of these were her suggestions!

A Zip Line Thank You card

One of my Master Gardener friends, Nancy Weaver, brought her husband and their three grandkids over for a Zip Line ride last week (just the two boys zipped AND NANCY).  Today we received four "Thank You" cards.  One from Nancy and an original one from each of the three kids. I liked them all but have posted Reed's card here (the guy in red).  He's got the funky stairs about right, the green Tree House, the crow's nest, the table and chairs, Shadow, the zip line itself, and someone on the zip line using the gold colored pulley.  You've got it right Reed!

We learned a little bit about American Goldfinches today

We should have realized this sooner but we consider American Goldfinches to be migratory around here.  They look like the photograph just above, they show up in the fall and hang around until March or April.  So when we saw a bright yellow bird this morning we weren't sure what it was.  It was like the illustration at the top of the post - so it's an American Goldfinch!  The deal is that they have a summer plumage and a winter plumage!  They're also considered to be non-migratory but, around here, they are - at least the population we see decreases dramatically in the spring and summer. They are very striking in their summer plumage - and that's the answer to the question "Why do our goldfinches look different from the pictures in the books?". 

This is how he does it!

I've gone to great lengths to get a bird feeder that the squirrels can't get to and the most recent is a trolley of sorts.  I've got a wire stretched with the bird feeder hanging on it and I move the feeder in and out by some small ropes and pulleys.  I've trimmed back some tree branches but he's still been getting in it. I've been told that they can jump eight feet so it's clear at least that far. Then I saw him actually doing it today.  He ran away when I came out but, greedy little creature that he is, he ignored me when I came back out with the camera and executed a command performance.

(Next day addendum - Glynda saw him doing a hanging walk today.)

Quitman welcomed home a fallen son today

Army Sgt. Joshua D. Powell

Died June 4, 2011

Laghman province, Afghanistan

Some more pictures

Do you know what this is?

I just occurred to me to check this out this morning.  It's "The Spread"!  And it's a little different.  It looks like the barn we built for the horses is gone. I think the "museum" is still there but not sure.  There's a swimming pool and I think that's probably an in-ground job.  It appears that the house has a new roof and that there's a new structure or two between the house and the barn. (click to make it bigger)

Street View doesn't go down Fenoglio Road.  This is the turn-off from Highway 59 coming from Montague.